(Though all her fairest forms are types of thee, And thou of God in thy great charity) Of such a finished, chastened purity.

SUNDAY. — Herbert.

O DAY most calm, most bright!
The fruit of this, the next world's bud;
The endorsement of supreme delight,
Writ by a friend, and with his blood;
The couch of time; care's balm and bay:
The week were dark but for thy light;
Thy torch doth show the way.

The other days and thou

Make up one man; whose face thou art,
Knocking at heaven with thy brow:
The working days are the back-part ;
The burden of the week lies there,
Making the whole to stoop and bow,
Till thy release appear.

Man had straight forward gone
To endless death. But thou dost pull
And turn us round, to look on one,
Whom, if we were not very dull,
We could not choose but look on still
Since there is no place so alone
The which he doth not fill.

Sundays the pillars are

;

On which heaven's palace archèd lies:

HYMN OF PAN

The other days fill up the spare
And hollow room with vanities.
They are the fruitful beds and borders
In God's rich garden; that is bare

Which parts their ranks and orders.

355

HYMN OF PAN.- Shelley.

FROM the forests and highlands.
We come, we come ;
From the river-girt islands,
Where loud waves are dumb,

Listening to my sweet pipings.
The wind in the reeds and rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle-bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass,
Were as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.

Liquid Peneus was flowing,

And all dark Tempe lay
In Pelion's shadow, outgrowing
The light of the dying day,

Speeded by my sweet pipings.

The Sileni, and Sylvans, and Fauns,
And the Nymphs of the woods and waves,
To the edge of the moist river-lawns,
And the brink of the dewy caves,
And all that did then attend and follow,
Were silent with love, as you now, Apollo,
With envy of my sweet pipings

Z

I sang of the dancing stars,
I sang of the dædal earth,
And of heaven, and the giant wars,
And love, and death, and birth ;

And then I changed my pipings,-
Singing how down the vale of Menalus
I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed:
Gods and men, we are all deluded thus!
It breaks in our bosom, and then we bleed:
All wept, as I think both ye now would,
If envy or age had not frozen your blood,
At the sorrow of my sweet pipings.

L'ALLEGRO.- Milton.

HENCE, loathed Melancholy,

Of Cerberus and blackest Midnight born! In Stygian cave forlorn,

'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights un holy,

Find out some uncouth cell,

Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings And the night raven sings;

There, under ebon shades, and low-browed rocks,

As ragged as thy locks,

In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell.

But come, thou Goddess, fair and free,
In heaven ycleped Euphrosyne,
And by men, heart-easing Mirth!
Whom lovely Venus at a birth
With two sister Graces more,
To ivy-crowned Bacchus bore;
Or whether (as some sages sing)
The frolic wind that breathes the spring,

L'ALLEGRO.

Zephyr with Aurora playing,
As he met her once a Maying;
There, on beds of violets blue,

And fresh blown roses washed in dew,
Filled her with thee, a daughter fair,
So buxom, blithe, and debcnair.

Haste, then, Nymph, and bring with thee
Jest, and youthful Jollity,

Quips, and Cranks, and wanton Wiles,
Nods, and Becks, and wreathed Smiles,
Such as hang on Hebe's cheek,
And love to live in dimple sleek;
Sport that wrinkled love derides,
And Laughter holding both his sides!
Come, and trip it as you go,
On the light, fantastic toe;

And in thy right hand lead with thee
The mountain Nymph, sweet Liberty;
And if I give thee honor due,
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreprovèd pleasures free;
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And, singing, startle the dull night,
From his watch-tower in the skies,
Till the dappled dawn doth rise ;
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow,
Through the sweet-brier, or the vine,
Or the twisted eglantine :
While the cock, with lively din,
Scatters the rear of darkness thin,
And to the stack, or the barn-door,
Stoutly struts his dames before.

Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering morn,

357

From the side of some hoar hill,
Through the high wood echoing shrill.
Some time walking, not unseen,
By hedge-row elms, on hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great sun begins his state,
Robed in flames and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight;
While the ploughman near at hand
Whistles o'er the furrowed land,
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And the mower whets his scythe,
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,
Whilst the landscape round it measures:
Russet lawns, and fallows gray,

Where the nibbling flocks do stray;
Mountains, on whose barren breast
The laboring clouds do often rest;
Meadows trim, with daisies pied,
Shallow brooks, and rivers wide.
Towers and battlements it sees
Bosomed high in tufted trees,
Where perhaps some beauty lies,
The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.
Hard by, a cottage chimney smokes,
From betwixt two aged oaks,
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met,
Are at their savory dinner set,

Of herbs, and other country messes,
Which the neat-handed Phillis dresses;
And then in haste her bower she leaves,
With Thestylis to bind the sheaves;
Or, if the earlier season lead,
To the tanned haycock in the mead,